Peace, Security and Defence Summit – Europe after February 24th: how secure is it?

In her current role at the Crisis Group, Elissa Jobson provides strategic direction and oversight for the organisation’s advocacy and is responsible for developing strategies to maximise the organisation’s policy impact. She previously served as the director of Africa regional advocacy and acted as the organisation’s main liaison with the African Union. Prior to joining the Crisis Group, Jobson was a media relations specialist with UNICEF in New York, where she helped coordinate public advocacy around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Before that, she was a journalist working for The Guardian, Africa Confidential, The Africa Report and Business Day, among other publications.

Nathalie Loiseau has over twenty years of experience in politics and diplomacy. She began her career as a diplomat with the French Ministry of Foreign affairs. Following this, she was Dean of the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) and then served as the Minister for European Affairs in France. In the European Parliament, Loiseau is also a member of the committees on Foreign Affairs and Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation. She is the author of an essay on women’s rights, “Choisissez Tout” and two comic books, “La Démocratie en BD” and “L’Europe en BD”.

Kavya Pearlman is an award-winning cyber-security professional with a deep interest in immersive and emerging technologies. As the Founder and CEO of XRSI, Pearlman is a pioneer of the organisation’s novel Privacy and Safety Framework for the Immersive Technologies Domain, security awareness in the metaverse, and various baseline security and privacy standards for emerging technologies. Pearlman serves as a member of the Global Coalition for Digital Safety at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and is part of the new WEF initiative, Defining and Building the Metaverse. She currently advises over 20 global governments on global policies for emerging technologies and human rights considerations and provides oversight to several key open-source efforts on metaverse-related technologies.

As the Vice-President of the European Investment Bank, Kris Peeters oversees the financing of security and defence, as well as relations with the European Parliament and NATO. His work as a former member of the European Parliament focused on justice and home, defence and foreign affairs, with a special interest in NATO-related topics. Peeters previously served as the Belgian deputy prime minister and minister of economy, consumer welfare and labour, prior to which he was the minister-president of the Flemish government. A lawyer by trade, he has also held several managing positions at UNIZO, the Belgian Union of Self-Employed Entrepreneurs and SMEs.

Kira Rudik is the Vice President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and Leader of the Ukrainian Golos Liberal Political Party. As a Member of the Ukrainian parliament, she serves as the First Deputy Chairwoman of the Parliament Committee on Digital Transformation. Before entering politics, Rudik was an IT entrepreneur and sat on the boards of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine and the IT Ukraine Association. A graduate of the Executive Program in Women’s Leadership at Stanford University, she has been named among the top 100 most influential women in Ukraine by Focus and Novoe Vremya (New Times) magazines.

At Hybrid CoE, Jukka Savolainen observes the resilience ecosystem, with a focus on maritime logistics, space and aviation, economy and finance, critical infrastructure, instrumentalised migration and civil protection. Prior to his current role, he held a 30-year career in the Finnish Border Guard, where he served as head of the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan and commander of the West Finland Coast Guard District, among other positions. Savolainen also briefly served as a counsellor for border security at the Finnish Permanent Representation to the EU and as a national expert at the European Council Secretariat’s Directorate-General for Justice and Home Affairs.

Professor Alexander Stubb is the former prime minister of Finland and has also notably served as the country’s finance minister, foreign minister, and trade and Europe minister. A former member of the European and Finnish parliaments, he was the chairman of the Finnish National Coalition Party (Kokoomus). Prior to joining the European University Institute, Stubb served as the vice president of the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Tomasz Smura currently leads the CPF Research Office and serves as a Member of the CPF Board. An independent, non-profit organisation, CPF is the main organiser of the Warsaw Security Forum, an annual European security conference with a strong focus on transatlantic cooperation. Smura’s research interests include United States foreign policy, East Asia and international security. His doctoral dissertation concerned the development of the system of balance of power in East Asia.

Željana Zovko is a Croatian diplomat and politician, who currently serves as a Member of the European Parliament. Zovko is the Vice-President of the European People’s Party (EPP) and the party’s Vice-Coordinator for Foreign Affairs. She is Vice-Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and of the Delegation for relations with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. A Member of the Delegation for relations with the United States, she is also a Substitute Member of the Committee on Culture and Education and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence. Before her election to the European Parliament, Zovko had an extensive diplomatic career as an ambassador.